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dljristlanitti ; 
Its |ja9t struggles— its present position— its futnre prospects: 



AN 



ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AT UNION COLLEGE 



ON 

y^, % SABBATH EVENING, JULY 25, 1847. 



BY REV. EBENEZER HALLEY, 

SALEM, N. Y. 



PUBLISHED BY THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



03 ALBANY: 
PRINTED BY JOEL MUNSELL. 

1847. 



A^ 



,-6 






ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen: 

Permit me to congratulate you as aspirants to the sacred 
office. Instead of seeking distinction through the crooked mazes 
of political adventure, or acquiring riches in the labors of com- 
mercial enterprise, you have chosen the better part in a volun- 
tary dedication of the future energies of your being, to advance 
the glory of God and the welfare of your species. May your 
lives be preserved to enter on its holy functions; may you be 
baptized with the living fire of the divine spirit, purifying and 
consecrating you to his service; may his influences abundantly 
accompany your ministrations without which the most burning 
eloquence and most perspicuous exhibitions of truth w^ill be una- 
vailing; and when " well stricken in years," and unfitted for further 
service here, may the ascending chariot convey you to the church 
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where, associated with 
patriarchs and evangelists, and the redeemed ones, "they that have 
turned many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and 
ever." 

Although you have not yet commenced a regular course of 
theological science, yet your preparatoiy studies in this venerable 
literary institution, perv^aded throughout by Christian influence, 
must have rendered you conversant with its general principles 
and character. What Judge Blackstone, with great elegance, 
affirms of the intimate relations subsisting between the different 



departments of science, " that they are of a sociable disposition, 
and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other," applies with 
still greater propriety to the harmonious alliance subsisting be- 
tween these and the Christian revelation. They all, so far as they 
go, illustrate or establish the religion of the Bible. They sustain 
the credibility of its fundamental principles, and enhance the value 
of its peculiar doctiines. They furnish the most valuable contri- 
butions to natural religion from the wide and varied aspects of 
the material universe, which enlarge our conceptions of the infinite 
majesty and excellence of the supreme Creator, while the melan- 
choly pictures that they exhibit of man before revelation shed its 
heavenly ray along his path — bewildered by error, agonized by 
fear and enslaved by vice — are the strongest collateral testimo- 
nies to its necessity and importance. The prelections and exercises 
that have hitherto engrossed your attention in this seat of science 
are admirable instruments to initiate you into the science of theology. 
The perusal of the Greek and Roman classics, those imperishable 
monuments of genius and eloquence and taste, those masterpieces 
of refined analysis and profound disquisition, must have impressed 
you with the incompetency of reason, to conduct us to certainty 
in matters of religion, and the ineflficacy of the most glowing 
declamations upon virtue, when unaccompanied by divine sanc- 
tions, to restrain the indulgence of depravity, and renovate the 
character of society. The departments of mental and ethical 
science conduct you to the very vestibule of theology; here our 
speculations embrace the history of a being " noble indeed in 
reason, infinite in faculties, in action like an angel, in apprehen- 
sion like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals," 
yet at the same time the subject of vicious passions, turbulent 
appetites, an insatiable craving for some unrealized object of en- 
joyment, feeling the consciousness of criminality, and a " long- 
ing for immortality mingled with the terrors of future retribu- 
tion," and do not these speculations bring us to the confines of 
, Christianity, and fit us for studying its numerous adaptations to 
the wants and circumstances of man. The experimental sciences, 
though devoid of any connexion with revealed religion, yet furnish 



us with those conclusive data of our reasoning between cause and 
effect, which silence the lips of the Atheist, while the striking 
disclosures which they make of infinite wisdom, power and 
goodness, exalt our conceptions of the divine character, and of 
the wonders of divine providence. And w^hen we open the page 
of history, that comprehensive volume of the past, do not the res 
gestce of Christianity embrace the history of the civilized world, 
and form a clue which guides us through all its diversified tran- 
sactions; for the progress of society, the improvements in the arts 
and sciences, the intrigues of cabinets, the convulsions of nations, 
the debasing influence of superstition, or the prevalence of a sound 
and enlightened piety, (and these form the chief materials of his- 
tory) are but the records of her conflicts, and partial success in 
our world. Christianity is the great radical point from which its 
leading events have diverged, the central spring from w^hich its 
most remote movements have originated. Contemplate her in the 
infancy of her existence, when she was extending her influence 
through the Roman empire, and w^hat does contemporaneous his- 
tory record, but the ferment of public opinion, the conflicts of 
Grecian philosophy, the conflagration of Rome, the edicts of 
emperors, the humanity of Pliny, and the formalities of the Roman 
tribunal? Or pass w^e to the age of the Constantines, we are intro- 
duced to the bitterness of theological controversies, and the con- 
flicting decisions of councils, the abortive efforts of Julian, the 
apostate, to restore the observance of Pagan worship, or the keen 
rivalry between Rome and Constantinople, as to the seat of me- 
tropolitan supremacy. Or, if we peruse the history of Mahomet, 
who in a subsequent age, swept like a tornado with his enthusi- 
astic followers over the east, we must search for his daring and 
successful policy in the distracted state of the Christian church, 
and the lamentable ignorance that universally prevailed. Or if we 
pass to the dark ages in which the human mind was plunged in 
error and superstition, and scarcely one ray of celestial light shot 
athwart the profound gloom, we shall find that all its freaks and 
its follies, its quibbles and subtleties, its sallies of indiscreet enthu- 
siasm, or its outbreakings of unrestrained phrenzy, originated in 



mistaken conceptions of religion; whether we advert to the su- 
premacy of Aristotelian logic, or the endowment of monastic edi- 
fices, the expedition of the Crusades, or the persecution of the 
Waldenses. Or finally shall we advert to the era of the Reforma- 
tion, when the German monk issued from his cloister, and held 
aloft that mystic volume, whose disclosures electrified and convulsed 
the nations like the shaking of the dry bones in the valley of 
vision — here we behold the connexion of Christianity with all 
the improvements and leading events of the age; the revival of 
classical literature, the diffusion of knowledge, a greater extension 
of civil rights, and improvement in moral and social enjoyment. 
And from the age of Luther to the present period, embracing an 
interval crowded with heart-stirring events and memorable changes 
in the state of society, we shall find Christianity intimately inter- 
woven with these, and whether employed as the engine of princely 
despotism, or the handmaid of sectarian intolerance, or the blessed 
herald of mercy, that her agency can be recognized in the revo- 
lutions, conspiracies, wars, measures of legislation, schemes of 
social reform, enterprizes of enlarged philanthropy and an insen- 
sible, yet powerfully controlling influence in the ordinary transac- 
tion of life, like the unseen stream whose existence is known only 
by the verdure on its banks; yes, and her blessed influence shall 
continue to pervade every element of society with increasing light 
and holiness until she reigns over our world with supreme and 
universal authority. My apology. Gentlemen, for the length of 
these remarks, is to remind you that your previous studies have 
considerably paved the way for your entering on the science of 
theology, and also to impress you with the grandeur and impor- 
tance of a study, the subjects of which exercise such a mighty 
influence over the interests and prospects of man. 

The subject to which I this evening invite your attention, is 
one that I have glanced at in these remarks: Christianity, in the 
three periods of her existence. Her past struggles — her present 
position — her future prospects. In treating so comprehensive a 
subject, I must confine myself to a general outline, and seize on 
the more prominent and leading features of my theme. 



I. Her Past Struggles. 

I might illustrate these by detailing in a chronological order, 
her conflicts ^vith Judaism, Heathenism, Mahomet an ism, Roman 
Catholicism, and other I'ormidable antagonists. I prefer however, 
the discussion of it in a more general shape, and shall proceed to 
illustrate the character of some of the most injurious influences 
that have conspired to obstruct the growth and prosperity of 
Christianity. 

These I apprehend maybe classified under the following heads: 
1. The ascendancy of civil power; 2. The pride of human intel- 
lect; 3. The claims of assumed merit; 4. The perversion of 
Christian morality. 

1. The ascendancy of civil power. — When our Saviour planted 
his church in the world, he conferred on her an exclusive character 
and organization: as a spiritual community she recognizes juris- 
diction to Christ alone as her supreme head, and conformity to 
him as her distinctive badge. Her laws, her institutions, her or- 
dinances, her administrations are all spiritual ; nor can she suffer 
these to be amalgamated with the policy of the world, without 
forfeiting her independence, and debasing her sacred character. 
" My kingdom," said the Saviour to Pilate, " is not of this world." 
Like two orbs that roll in harmony in their separate spheres, yet 
reel and occasion wild disaster, w^hen they approach each other, 
so the w^orld and the church, however important and useful in 
their independent positions, no sooner enter into an alliance, and 
the church submits to secular authority, than her influence is im- 
mediately neutralized. The one contemplates time, the other 
eternity. The province of the one embraces the external actions 
of men; with motives and the state of the affections, it does not 
interfere; the great end proposed by the other is the renovation 
of the soul. The only weapon of the one is force, it has nothing 
to do with persuasion; the only legitimate weapon of the other is 
persuasion, or the voluntary surrender of the affections to the 
influence of truth, it has nothing to do with force; the conduct of 
her divine master is decisive on this point. At no period of her 
existence, did his religion appear more urgently to require the 



8 

shield of civil protection thrown around her, than in the days of 
her infancy, when she was assailed by Jewish intolerance and 
heathen superstition, by the pen of the philosopher, and the sword 
of the statesman ; when the blood of her sons soaked the sands of 
the amphitheatre, and the burning pile, as it crackled and blazed, 
robbed her of her most valiant defenders. Could not the divine 
power, which subdued a Saul of Tarsus, and converted a furious 
bigot into a zealous apostle, have so overpowered the terrors of 
Felix and dissipated the suspicions of Agrippa, as to have ren- 
dered them in their official stations, the patrons of his religion; 
nay, as its influence penetrated even into the palace of Nero, 
could not this atrocious miscreant, have been transformed into 
a Christian emperor, and then Christianity would have reposed 
under the wing of legislative protection, and been pampered by 
the largesses of royal favor; the legions of Csesar would have 
been her defence, and the mint of the empire her treasury; 
the diadem of royalty glittering on her head, and the purple 
of state-majesty flowing around her shoulders. But her poverty 
was her riches, her defenceless condition was her best protection. 
In a subsequent century, however, Constantine incorporated re- 
ligion with the state, by patronising a particular sect and endowing 
all its ministers as stipendiaries of the government. This contin- 
ued to be the practice of the Roman emperors until the removal 
of the seat of government to Constantinople, where the predomi- 
nant influence of Rome in the western empire, gradually raised 
its bishops to the rank of independent sovereigns, whose ambition 
and policy enabled them to complete that ecclesiastical hierarchy 
which so long insulted the understandings, and trampled on the 
liberties of mankind. At the Reformation, when the papal yoke 
was thrown off by so many countries, this unscriptural principle, 
so destructive of the rights of conscience and of the supremacy of 
Christ in his church, was still retained in almost all that embraced 
the Protestant faith, and is recognized by most European govern- 
ments at the present day. 

A transient glance at some of the more prominent evils of this 
system is all that we can now attempt. Look at its injurious in- 



9 

fluence on the characttM' and institutions of Christianity. The 
church of Christ is a select community, designed for those, ^vho 
under a sincere conviction of its truth, have been induced to sub- 
mit to its jurisdiction. As its spirit and requirements render it 
incongenial to the depraved heart, and all its rewards point to 
another woild, few if any, will be induced to enter within its pale, 
but those who have been baptized in its spirit, and enjoy its con- 
trolling influence. An elevated standard of duty is thus main- 
tained within the church, which preserves the identity of her 
spiritual character; her members are isolated from the society 
around them, her worship and institutions retained in all their 
original simplicity and purity, so that her altar is the throne of 
the heart, and her image the beauty of holiness. But look at this 
church when no longer cradled amid the elements of persecution, 
it became the protege of the government, and basked in the sun- 
shine of royal favor. It now lost all its essential distinctive fea- 
tures, and became a mere creature of civil policy. Individuals 
enrolled themselves among its members, as the sure passport to 
aggrandizement and power; numbers flocked to its temples to 
oflfer incense at the shrine of Mammon, instead of the Saviour of 
men, and thus the line of separation between the church and the 
world was effectually removed. This was succeeded by an entire 
perversion of the institutions of Christianity: that simple and art- 
less ceremonial w^hich the Saviour prescribed for his church, was 
entirely unadapted to her secular charactei", when she reposed 
under the shade of w^orldly power; the magnificent ceremonies of 
the Heathen temple were interwoven with the unambitious rites 
of the Christian synagogue; the ingenuity of art and the trea- 
sures of opulence w^ere employed to adorn and embellish her, and 
the Christian church, yoked to the car of the state, succumbed 
under its secularizing influence, and lost every feature of her 
spirituality. The " bride the lamb's wife" was now arrayed in 
the gairish ornaments of worldly distinction; processions and pa- 
geants, festivals, lustrations, costly edifices, and a routine of idle 
and unmeaning ceremonies, were the unhappy fruits to the church 
of Christ, when she tamely surrendered her independence to 

2 



10 

another. Nor less injurious was it to the sanctity of the clerical 
office. The influence which a distinct order of men, when exclu- 
sively devoted to their sacred duties, exerts over society must be 
immense. Especially when knowledge was chiefly diffused by oral 
instruction, (and this occupies the greatest period of the Christian 
church) how necessary w^as it that its public teachers should be 
distinguished for their piety, zeal, diligence, and purity. The 
financial law of the gospel, that they who ministered at the altar, 
should live exclusively by the altar, constituted an interesting 
bond between a pastor and his flock, and a powerful stimulus to 
the faithful discharge of his duties, as it subjected him to the salu- 
tary control of public opinion. But no sooner were its ministers 
elevated to the position of state stipendiaries than they became 
intriguing, ambitious, worldly minded, panting for preferment, 
fawning sycophants for the patronage of the great, fomenting 
conspiracies and insurrections, and often marching, clad in armor, 
at the head of armies. Their ignorance was melancholy in the 
extreme: few of them could write, the greater part of them could 
not read the breviary of their church, and their instructions in 
public, consisted either of the most absurd legends, or the most 
violent distortions of scriptural truth. Thus for many centuries 
the priests lips never " taught knowledge," and their secular 
character as the minions of royal patronage was one of the chief 
causes of that melancholy ignorance and superstition that so long 
overshadowed the Christian world. 

And finally, remember, that to this must be traced all those 
religious persecutions that have stained the pages of ecclesiastical 
history. If civil government had kept w^ithin its appropriate 
province, in respecting the rights of conscience, and extending 
alike to all religious sects and parties, its impartial protection, no 
one could have assumed a lordly control over another. As diversi- 
ty of sentiment is inseparable from our present condition, there 
would have been still the jealousies of rival sects, and the din of 
theological strife, but it would have been a war of opinions, not 
of force, and after the violence of polemical controversy had spent 
itself, truth would have been in the ascendant. But when one 



11 

particular sect was elevated, its adherents regarded with jealousy 
and contempt every rival sy.stem, and invoked the aid of the secu- 
lar power to suppress and exterminate them. No weapon could 
have been more unphilosophical or unscriptural; the mind cannot 
be coerced, it must be reasoned with; it will yield to the influence 
of persuasion, not to the terrors of force; you may immure an 
individual within the walls of a prison, and confine his body in 
fetters of iron, and exclude him for years from the light of day 
and the converse of his fellow men, for believing what you deem 
to be heresy, and after inflicting these severe privations, what 
have you accomplished? Converted him? No! Caused him 
to recant his opinions? No! Loosened his attachment to his 
religion? O no; it only endears it to him the more, and causes 
him with justice to suspect the validity of that creed that requires 
to be upheld with the gleam of the bayonet, and the solitude of the 
dungeon. How disastrous the scenes which this baleful principle 
has produced in the Christian church! To how many countries 
can we turn, where this blood-besmeared idol, has made havoc of 
the saints of God, and converted his heritage into a field of deso- 
late slaughter. Go to the valleys of Piedmont, or the mountains 
of Switzerland; think of the massacres and carnage in France and 
Bohemia; read the history of the Netherland converted almost into 
a desert by the murderous soldiery of the Duke of Alva, and its 
fields strewed with the bodies of its inhabitants, left to be bleached 
by the rains, and withered by the winds of heaven; peruse the 
martyrologies of Scotland and England, embalming the memories 
of those devoted champions of the cross, that fell, supporting the 
standard of Zion, and whose last prayer for a bleeding church, 
rose up to heaven amid the flames and smouldering ashes that 
surrounded them; go to the inquisition with its subterraneous 
cells and instruments of torture, and after having striven to count 
the numbers of those that have thus perished as the victims of 
religious intolerance, ask in the language of Ahab, " Who slew all 
these?" and the reply must be, it was a state religion. If all had 
been impartially protected in their religious opinions, man could 
never have oppressed his brother. It was this which forged the 



12 

chains, erected the scaffold, sharpened the sword, kindled the 
faggot, drowned the voice of the expiring sufferers, and bereaved 
the church of some of her best and noblest sons in the defence of 
the truth. 

I have thus attemped to point out the struggle of Christianity, 
with the ascendancy of civil power, and have illustrated the bane- 
ful influence of this, on the purity, and efficiency, and tranquility 
of the church. Let us rejoice that our favored country is a stranger 
to the dominant influence of any religious sect, that unfettered 
freedom of religious belief is the privilege, as it is the birthright 
of all, and that the various sections of the church of Christ, in- 
spired with a generous emulation to outshine each other in purposes 
and labors of love, here repose alike under the vine and fig-tree 
of civil authority, there being none to make them afraid. 

2. The jnide of human intellect. — Nothing would appear a 
priori more improbable, than that a revelation from heaven 
should be throughout palpable to our comprehension. Is it 
possible that man, the mere creature of a day, who beats a 
few pulses, and has leisure only to snatch a passing glance at 
the economy of nature around him, should be able to compre- 
hend the character and procedure of that infinite, eternal being, 
whose presence extends to all space, and whose providence 
embraces all worlds. There would be something ludicrous in 
an insect endeavoring to study the complex nature of man, 
classifying his mental and moral faculties, launching into spec- 
ulations respecting free-will and preordination, and confidently 
predicating the actions of men from the influence of the motives 
exhibited to them: here however, notwithstanding the disparity, 
it w^ould be still one finite being, sitting in judgment on the ac- 
tions of another; but in the other case, it is finite endeavoring to 
grasp what is infinite, the child of an hour with the plummet of 
his feeble experience, desirous to guage the wisdom of him to 
whom " a thousand years are as one day." Every thing around 
us in the works of God is replete with mystery. There are limits 
to the inquisitive mind, in its excursions into the departments of 
matter or of mind, w^hich declare " hitherto shalt thou come but no 



13 

farther." Beyond these, all is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. 
And if there be depths thus unfathomable, in the works of Jeho- 
vah, which we witness, if a olobide of water be a microcosm, a 
little world teeming with wonders, if the insect that sports its 
little hour in the sunbeam, present materials of study to the most 
insatiable curiosity, in the structure of its wing, the formation of 
its eye, and the pulsation of its heart, if we are even ignorant of 
the nature of that union existing between our souls and our bodies, 
shall we look for nothing mysterious in the word of God? nothing 
wonderful in the history of an incarnate Saviour, in his victories 
over sin, and Satan and the grave, in the influences of his gospel 
on the understandings and affections of men, in the conflicts w^hich 
his church has undergone, and in the fulfilment of scripture 
prophecy by human instrumentality? It has been said with great 
propriety, that a supernatural revelation without mysteries w^ould 
be like a firmament w^ithout stars, and become a convenient altar 
for the incense of human vanity. 

Infidels object to the Bible, because many of its doctrines are 
incomprehensible to reason; though w^e believe this to be only a 
pretext; for the elementary principles of natural religion, such 
as the eternity and omnipresence of Jehovah, the existence of 
moral evil, and the free agency of man with the fixed order of 
events, are just as incomprehensible to the human intellect, 
as the doctrines of the incarnation and atonement. Nay, if they 
are consistent wnth their principles and exclude w^hatever is mys- 
terious from a place among the categories of their belief, they 
must take refuge in atheism itself, and subvert the first principles 
of all natural science. But Christianity has sustained as much 
injury from its friends, in the way in which many of them have 
disposed of its mysteries, as from its avowed enemies. They have 
applied the principles of philosophy to its doctrines, and endeav- 
ored to refine and explain away whatever is incomprehensible to 
our reason. If these, indeed, could be shown to be contrary to 
reason, we w^ould'be at liberty to reject them entirely; for nothing 
in the revelations of God to his children can be inconsistent with 
the unbiassed exercise of those faculties which he has implanted 



14 

within us; but there may be many doctrines entirely above our 
reason, and these we should implicitly believe instead of reject- 
ing them, or presumptuously trying to simplify them, and reduce 
them to the standard of our judgment. Had these principles been 
acted upon through the diversified history of the Christian church, 
how many disastrous controversies would have been prevented! 
Let us select for illustration the doctrine of the trinity. Those 
who hold orthodox sentiments upon this subject, maintain by the 
authority of scripture, that there are three divine persons in one 
undivided essence, and though each of them be possessed of the 
perfections of Godhead, yet there are not three Gods, but there is 
only one living and true God: although this view of the doctrine 
neither multiplies unity nor reduces a plurality into one, and 
therefore exhibits to our faith nothing inconsistent with reason, 
yet every one must perceive that it is one of those incomprehensi- 
ble fields of thought that lie entirely beyond the land marks of 
human inquiry. Yet if we examine ecclesiastical history, we 
shall find that conflicting opinions upon this subject agitated the 
church for centuries, nice distinctions were established, party 
phrases, such as oij^oougiog and o^xoiovgioc: were banded about, to ex- 
press the creed of the contending factions; and councils and synods 
assembled to ratify by their decisions, what must ever continue to 
be wrapt up in unfathomable obscurity. In like manner, the 
person of the Messiah, or the assumption of a human nature into 
union with the divine, has given rise to controversies which have 
been waged with the utmost keenness. Had mankind bowled 
implicitly to the teachings of scripture on this subject, no diversity 
of opinion would have existed respecting it, for it is revealed so 
clearly " that he who runs may read" it. But the union of a divine 
and human nature in one person, was regarded as repugnant to 
the principles of a sound philosophy; and therefore proceeding to 
cut the knot which they could not unloose, one party rejected his 
humanity on the ground that his alledged appearances were only 
illusions on the senses of his apostles, another rejected his divinity 
by denying that he had any pre-existence before his incarnation 
in our world, while a third, anxious to combine the two systems, 



15 

allows his humanity, and at the same time, that if not divine, yet in 
his other nature, he is superior to the angels, or the most exalted 
finite intelligencies of which we can form any conception. The 
most remarkable illustration of this system at the present day is 
the Neology of Germany. This demi-infidel theology repudiates 
every doctrine that cannot be exj)lained on the principles of reason, 
and studiously excludes from the narrations of scripture, almost 
every feature of supernatural agency. By its bold assertions, its 
undevotional spirit, and its reckless interpretation of scripture, it 
has loosened the reverence for the inspired volume, on the conti- 
nent of Europe, and tended to cherish a sceptical spirit among 
all classes of society. Thus, when the sacred writers describe to 
us the history of Satan, the fallen spirit along with his confede- 
rates in rebellion, we are not to understand these as real person- 
ages that have any existence, but as bold metaphors, intended to 
point out the prevalence of depravity in our world. In like man- 
ner, the miracles of Christ are attempted to be explained by the 
influence of secondary causes, and the omnipotent Saviour who 
had the keys of universal nature at his girdle, degraded, as his 
acts of mercy pass through the ordeal of their irreverent criti- 
cism, by being likened to the dexterity of the manipulist, or the 
feats of the juggler. Thus has the pride of human intellect ope- 
rated as a powerful barrier to the influence and reception of the 
Gospel. Let it be your uniform aim in your future studies, to 
hold reason ever subordinate to revelation, to make the oracles 
of heaven the supreme standard of controversy, and to bring 
down every high thought, and every exalted imagination into 
captivity to the obedience of Christ. 

3. The claims of assumed merit. — It is a singular fact which 
we stay not at present to explain, that the religion of man, in 
every age, has been of an expiatory character. Not only among 
more polished states, w^here a state religion seems a necessary 
engine of policy,, and where it required only a few slender mate- 
rials for the poet to construct a beauteous mythology, and the 
legislator to frame an imposing ritual, but even among those 
savage tribes, for our knowledge of which we are indebted to the 



16 

enterprize of the traveller, or on whose shores the keel of the ship 
has recently rested, we discover a consciousness of guilt deeply 
implanted in man, along with the conviction that their deities can 
only be rendered placable by sacrifices. The character of these 
was proportioned to the criminality of the offender; sins of the 
deepest dye could be atoned only by the entire renunciation of 
property, or by doing violence to the tenderest affections of the 
soul. This explains the bloody, and often revolting rites in 
which they engaged ; for as they deemed these meritorious in the 
expiation of guilt, they were anxious to appease their deities by 
sacrifices of a strictly equivalent value. In the religion of na- 
ture, man is the author of his own regeneration — the physician 
who pretends to heal, and at the same time the patient who is 
suffering. How different is the religion of Jesus I There man is 
contemplated as so helpless that he must look for deliverance 
to the sovereign mercy of God alone, and yet as so important, 
that his redemption from sin and everlasting condemnation gave 
rise to one of the most wondrous movements in the annals of the 
universe, when " God so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, 
but have everlasting life." The atonement of the Saviour, as it 
satisfies the justice and sustains the purity of the divine govern- 
ment, also secures the salvation of all those who believe in 
him; they have redemption through his blood, even the for- 
giveness of sins, and are freely justified from all things. To 
suppose that any thing supplementary was left to be done on 
the part of the sinner, would be derogatory to the dignity of 
the sacrifice, and inconsistent with the professed tendency of 
the Gospel, which uniformly, by impressing us with a sense of 
our demerit and worthlessness, traces our deliverance from per- 
dition to the love and mercy of Jehovah. Repentance cannot 
repair the insult done to violated law, or mitigate its penalty 
to the offender, nor the most virtuous resolutions be accepted 
as an equivalent for guilt already contracted. " God who is 
rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, hath 
quickened us together with Christ. For by grace are ye saved 



17 

through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." 
This is that blessed doctrine, that irradiates the inspired page as 
with the brightness of a sunbeam, the theme of prophets and 
apostles and martyrs, the sure basis of our peace with God, the 
great vital principle that pervades all the doctrines and precepts 
and motives and invitations of scripture. A musician would term 
it the key note of the piece; an artist, the prominent object on the 
canvass, and the drapery and grouping, all so artfully arranged, 
as to impart additional effect to the principal figure; and an 
astronomer as the central orb around which the inferior satelites 
revolve in their brilliancy and harmony. Yet though a principle 
of fundamental importance in our religion, a casual reference to 
the successive stages in the history of the Christian church, will 
show how much its lustre has been obscured, and its importance 
attempted to be evaded by the various devices of men. It is a 
doctrine repulsive indeed to the pride of man, and one of the chief 
stumbling blocks, that lie in the way of believing the gospel. 
Accordingly in the infancy of the church, we find the majority of 
the inspired writers, and especially the apostle Paul, establishing 
the doctrine of the justification of the sinner in the sight of God, 
irrespective of human merit, and exhibiting to Jew and Gentile, 
the fallacy of any other reliance than the righteousness of Christ. 
No sooner w^ere these lights removed from the church, than their 
unanswerable expositions of this fundamental principle were for- 
gotten, and the leaven of merit began to appear in every form, 
according to the habitudes of the individual or the usages of so- 
ciety. It aspired to extraordinary feats of self denial, to super- 
human triumphs of mind over the influence of the senses, to rigors, 
austerities, privations, such as outrage the social feelings of 
men, and derange the mechanism of society. The martyrs who 
sealed their testimony with their blood, either at the scaffold or 
the stake, were contemplated as embalmed amid the odors of holi- 
ness; and those who had not the courage, or lacked the opportu- 
nity to render a similar testimony, displayed it by their stoical 
indifference to the indulgencies and appetites of our nature. The 
rich surrendered their wealth into the possession of the church, the 

3 



18 

gay parted with their jewels and assumed the garb of poverty, 
the active renounced the pursuits of business and spent their days 
amid stern sechision, while the most tender relations of life were 
broken up, and the action believed to be the more meritorious as 
the sacrifices were painful and self denying. The human mind 
yielding itself up to every extravagance of feeling, lost sight en- 
tirely of the spiritual nature of religion, and of the sacrifice of 
Christ for the sins of men, and constructed a system of the most 
puerile and debasing superstition. Religion, instead of breathing 
the atmosphere of social life, and qualifying its possessor for re- 
pelling the temptations, as well as enjoying with moderation the 
comforts of life, was banished to deserts and cells, where it exhib- 
ited itself in acts of abstinence and mortification, painful austeri- 
ties and revolting privations. To reside under the ledge of the 
naked rock, or in the midst of the pestilential swamp, to subsist 
exclusively on the roots and bark of trees, to maintain the body 
for a length of time in an upright position, or to besmear it with 
ointment and expose it to the stings of insects under the rays of a 
vertical sun — to torture it by scourges or impair its energies by 
want of sleep — were regarded as a sure passport to the favor 
of heaven. The doctrine of human merit had entirely supplanted 
the reliance upon the atonement of the Saviour, and left man to 
eke out his salvation by the suggestions of his own fancy. To 
this principle we are to ascribe the origin of monastic institutions. 
An analysis of these would evidently be foreign to our purpose, 
but it shows how egregiously the principles and spirit of the gos- 
pel had been forgotten, when these outbreakings of fanatical zeal 
were not the mere solitary effusions of enthusiastic temperament, 
but received the direct countenance of the church, and buildings 
exclusively appropriated for this use were erected, and different 
orders, with their appropriate badges and spheres of operation 
were instituted, and the principle of merit arranged into a com- 
plete system, the devotee being incited to extraordinary acts of 
mortification by the legends of saints and confessors, and taught 
to rely for the expiation of his guilt on the penances of the church. 
Nor was it within the cloister, or to those who had renounced all 



19 

intercourse with the world, that this principle was restricted; its ad- 
vantages were accessible to all; the citizen received absolution, by 
submitting to the exactions of the ecclesiastic, the rapacious baron 
expiated the sins of a lawless life, by surrendering at his death a 
considerable portion of his valuable lands to the church. And 
the doctrine of purgatory, by extending a posthumous dispensation 
to those whom the hardening process of crime or the graspings 
of avarice had rendered inditferent to their spiritual interests in 
this world, and placing it within the reach of the pious solicitude 
of friends to extricate them from everlasting perdition, reared the 
capstone on this monstrous evil. Indeed the whole ceremonial 
of the Roman Catholic church, in its penances, its pilgrimages, 
the veneration in which it held the memories of departed saints, 
and the extravagant encomiums it pronounced on monastic life, 
studiously kept out of view the righteousness of Christ, by thus 
fostering the pride and presumption of the human heart. Thus 
during the space of twelve hundred years, a long and melancholy 
period in the history of man, was this central, all important prin- 
ciple in the Christian institute, the jewel without a compeer, 
the pearl beyond all price, as effectually displaced from man's 
w^orship and creed, as if it had no claim to a place there; and 
when this sacrilegious act had been performed, the services of 
the Christian temple became nothing but unmeaning ceremo- 
nies; for the deity had fled, and the altar of expiatory sacrifice 
was overturned, and the appointed way of access into the holy 
of holies, sprinkled by atoning blood, was barricaded, and the 
response of a reconciled God from above the mercy seat, and 
between the cherubim, to his worshipping children, ceased to be 
heard; and over the atoning sacrifice of the immaculate lamb did 
man presumptuously erect his own altar, and offer up the smoke 
of his own vanity and impiety, and insult a holy God by his pro- 
fane and loathsome services, and become the victim of as fatal a 
delusion, as during the darkest periods of heathen superstition. 
You are aware that the indecent and grossly mercenary purposes 
to which the principle was applied, was one of the chief causes 
that paved the way for the blessed reformation by Luther. Having 



20 

carefully perused the scriptures, he perceived how correct views 
of this subject furnished the individual with a key to the whole 
subject matter of revelation. He accordingly termed it "articulus 
stantis vel cadentis ecclesise," the article of a standing or falling 
church: and the churches which have embraced the Reformation, 
have, with few^ exceptions, incorporated this doctrine of justification 
by faith, through the righteousness of Christ, in their standards, 
and given to it an important place in their ministrations. And 
it is a truth, not less illustrative of the purifying influences of the 
gospel, than of the entire accordance of its principles with the 
philosophy of our nature, that where the doctrine of free grace is 
faithfully and clearly preached, and its connexion with the glory 
of God, and influence on the habitudes and graces of the Christian 
life faithfully exhibited, we always witness a corresponding ele- 
vation of character, and inflexible attachment to virtue; w^hile in 
those churches on the contrary, where these are either entirely set 
aside by philosophical disquisitions on morality, or assailed by fu- 
rious invective as unfriendly to the interests of holiness, we find 
a visible increase of selfishness and crime. 

4. The perversions of Christian morality. — It is a fact worthy 
of notice, that infidel WTiters, with scarcely one exception, have 
extolled the morality of scripture. How^ever hostile to revelation 
as a whole, they are charmed with the ethical department of the 
New Testament; they acknowledge that for purity and elevation 
of sentiment, Socrates and Seneca must yield the palm of superiori- 
ty, and that the life of Christ, as drawn by the evangelists is a 
perfect embodiment of virtue. It is natural to expect that wherev- 
er this religion is known, it must exercise a salutary influence on 
the face of society. No one can compare the state of the w^orld 
during the purest days of heathen morality, with the age in which 
w^e live, notwithstanding its Avoful degeneracy, without being im- 
pressed with this conviction. It is Christianity w^hich has re- 
pressed the inroads of licentiousness and abolished the unnatural 
practices of Pagan institutions, w^hich has softened the atrocities 
of war and ameliorated the wretchedness of servitude, which has 
hallowed the social relations of life and converted w^oman from 



21 

the victim of man's brutality am] the slave of his passions into his 
fondly cherished companion, which has advocated man's inaliena- 
ble rights, whether as an individual or a member of civil society, 
which has regulated the administration of justice, secured the 
validity of treaties between ditferent nations, and originated in- 
numerable plans of benevolent effort. Yes, and were she to dis- 
appear from the midst of us, much as we may boast of science and 
law and civilization, the history of the French revolution proves 
that we should soon sink to a level with savages and assassins. 
But there are many causes which have obstructed the indirect 
influence of religion on the state of society (for it is of this, and 
not of its spiritual tendency on the hearts of its professors that we 
now speak,) and none probably to a greater extent than the nu- 
merous perversions of its morality. 

One of these is the grossly defective and unscriptural manner in 
which morality is inculcated, and its leading principles explained 
in works on ethical science. The scriptures to which we are 
indebted for out correct perceptions of moral duty uniformly rep- 
resent virtue or holiness as something immutable and inde- 
pendent of human authority or the sanctions of civil law, as 
determined in its qualities by the state of the heart and as ac- 
ceptable only when performed from love to God and regard 
for his authority. Man is here recognised as a being of moral 
obligation, and his character in this world as closely identified 
with his happiness or misery in another. All that is imperative 
in the authority of the supreme legislator, or melting in the pathos 
of a Saviour's love, or solemn in the awful disclosures of eter- 
nity, are employed to enforce the obligations of duty. While our 
hearts are warmed with these sublime pictures, if we take up any 
of the standard waiters on moral philosophy, we seem to have 
passed into another region. There morality is disassociated from 
all the holy principles with which it is incorporated in scripture, 
*and reduced to a matter of expediency, or the cold abstractions of 
reason. There is scarcely in any of them an allusion to the 
Christian revelation; nay, in most of them there is an avowed 
hostility to the word of God, and an adoption of principles evi- 



ilontlv sulnoi-sivo ot* its authority. In these speculations, instead 
ot tlowino purely from the fountain of life, morality tilirates 
thniugh the depravity ol" the hinnan heart, hy which its puritv is 
corrupted, and its salutary intluences impaired. Hobbt^s tor in- 
stance, taught that there was no distinction Ivtween virtue and 
vice apart from political enactment; Shattslniry, that a regard to 
our own interests ought to be the standard ot" our Juty: Hume 
maintaint\l that that alone was virtuous, which luiii'ht be useful 
to oui-selves or othei^; while Smith resolves our feclinos of appro- 
bation or the revei-se at the conduct of men, into pure sympathy, 
thus making virtue a meiv creature ot' impulse, the offspring alone 
of emotions which are to Iv determintxl according- to the previous 
habits of the indiviilual, or the state of soi'iety in whieh he moves. 
Am I wrong in athrming that such spt\:ulations must have exert eil 
an injurious intluence in counteracting the temlencv whi,li the 
scriptures might otherwise have exerttnl on the t'eaturesol s^viety. 
These were all men of lettei^: they were the cla;^ical authors of 
their day; their writing's aKnmd in brilliant wit and eKx]uent 
fimcy; they weiv rudely disseminateil among the rtn^dinti^ public; 
they fornunl tor more than a century, the basis of thase preltvtions 
delivertHJ in colleges, and thus swayt\l the opinions of tluvse who 
weiv atterwanls to contix^l the public mind at the bar, in the 
senate house and in the pulpit. Thus has the indiivct influence 
of the gixspel u^xm six'iety Ikvn impainxl by ethical svstt^ns, cal- 
culaltxl to pan<ier to the deprav^ni suggestions of the heart, and 
the meivenary dictait>s of self-intert>st, or the hollow maxims of a 
bungling exptxliency have been substitutetl for the clear and un- 
compivmising rei]uiivmenls i\t'the law of Goth 

Having thus consideixnl some of the past strui::i::les of our holy 
religion, permit me to illustrate, 

II. Its Present Position. 

There is a stnmg tendency among men to overrate the imj>ort- 

ance of the times in which they live. They suppose that their 

a^e must stand out in a prv^ninent jx>sition fi-om all the pi-ectxlinix, 

and that those elements are then in motion which are toenlii^hten 



2:^ 



our spfcics ;iiul s((M(H)(\ |)i> the It^nlmt'S ol socii'lN on all couiin^" 
tiuu's, I liMUi" (lu'V AW (lisj)ost'(l lo iH)ii((Mi\|)hil(' passiiiL;' cNriils 
(lirou^li a inaL;nir\ ill*;- iiu'diiim; tlirir Iumih'S an- j^iants, lluir 
yrais eras, and llicir t>ri'un ciu'i's iiiscs in (lu- liisloiv ol' llu' 
woiiil. Tins is luoro t'spi'iiall_\ llic rase, if alter Noiict) lias cu- 
j()V(>(i ail unusual period ol li an(|uilil\ , il hoi'onies suddenly aL;i- 
taled and lonxulscd io its renin', lilve tlie ii\ er wliieli alter olidino' 
siiu>othl\ aloiii;, at last (LlnIuvs o\ er the precipice in the luoken 
anil IcKniiiiiLi; eataraet. W f hope to he preserved lioiu a (U'hision 
wliieli Nani;uine minds are so prone to in(hil«;'e. WC disret;ard 
alikiMhe di-eains ol' optimists and the speeulations ol pcditieal 
eeonomists, helie\ iuL; that ( 'in isl ianil v is the on U elleetual panacea 
lor the disorders o[ sot ielv, and that tlu' importance ol events 
slu>ul(l he estimated only hy llie innueiiee yvliich il exerts, and the 
extent to wliich il is dilliised. Without heini;- eliar^-eal)le w ilh 
enthusiasm, we nia\ considi'r the present iHK'<i(i()ii ol" our relit^ion 
as more auspicious than almost \\\\\ in its past liistoi>, and lead- 
iiiil' us to cherish the most deliiihUul antiein.it ions ol tiie luture. 
Let us shortly o-hince at a lew ol" its features. 

It is an a^'e disi in^uislied hy the acknowled^^ed (liseoin/ifurc 
of infitle/i/i/, \\'her«> aic^ the hoasted successors of Kolinohioke, 

Sliaftshury and limned lias another champion arisen possessed 
ol the hiilliani wit oi' \ Oltairt" or the spK'iulid diet ion ol (iih- 
hon ? When the works of tliese authors successi\ cly appc^ared, 
llieie were indiyiduals who favored llieir suppression hy civil 
aiilhority, from the appreliension llial Die interests of religion 
would he endani^ered hy the sophistry and wit with whieli 
it was attacked, it was a groundless, unliol>, and pernicious fear. 

Krror alone has reason to recoil from invest ioal ion, tiulli only 
hecomes the more impreoinihle the lont^er it is assailt'd. I low 
strikini;'ly is this yerilied in the deist ical controversy I The 
speculations ol" these \viilers called out for tht> defenct> of Chris- 
tianity a iiost of advoeat(\s unrivalled for tlit>ir prol'ound lt>arninj;-, 
poweifnl reasoiiino- and philosophical analysis — the Lelands 
and the Laidners, the W'arhui tons, the Paleys, the Watsons, who 
liavt' demolished entirely the arguments ol" their opponents, and 



24 

laid the controversy forever at rest. No writer of eminence now, 
has the audacity to throw down the gauntlet as the advocate 
of infidelity, and no individual now, unless he wishes to be loathed 
and shunned, would claim any affinity to this philosophical school. 
Genius is no lono^er viewed as the necessary ally of scepticism, 
nor a professed belief in the doctrines of the cioss, as the indi- 
cation of a feeble intellect. The truth need not be di^uised — 
infidelity has been worsted, her weapons are spent — her mas- 
ter spirits have fled — her surviving assailants have not the 
courage to muster afresh — every mode of attack, whether co- 
vert or avowed, has been fruitless, and the citadel of truth occu- 
pies as secure and impregnable a position as ever. What mighti- 
ly contributed to hasten the fall of infidelity, was the horrors of 
the French revolution, which, by disclosing the legitimate influ- 
ence of its principles, caused even its abettors to look on that 
fearful tragedy with dismay, while it roused the friends of truth 
to renewed exertions for the extension of Christianity as the pa- 
rent of virtue, and the most eflfectual safeguard against the perils 
of anarchy and the inundation of crime. 

It is an age distinguished by its increasing reverence for the 
scriptures as the sole standard of religious controversy. Names 
have exerted a most disastrous influence in the Christian church. 
Those eminent men who wrote in defence of its doctrines, or 
became founders of particular sects, not only received the gi-ati- 
tude of their contemporaries, but have, contrary to what their own 
wishes would have dictated, wielded a despotic authority over the 
judgments of posterity. They were elevated to the rank of 
aristarchs in theology, and their opinions were regarded as en- 
titled to implicit belief. The disciples of Plato and Pythago- 
ras scarcely cherished a more superstitious reverence for their 
founders, or received the peculiar tenets of their schools with more 
unhesitating confidence. The question was not, is it contained in 
the scriptures, but was it taught by St. Augustine, or Chrysostom, 
by Calvin or Whitby; is it embodied in the Westminister Confes- 
sion of Faith, or the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England. 
These days are happily passing away. The supremacy of names 



i 



25 

is on tlie wane, and among all classes of Christians there is a more 
distinct recognition of the principles and authority of the gospel; 
the Bible is now more generally appealed to as the only standard 
by which all religious controversies should be determined. The 
opinions of fathers, the decrees of synods, the authority of creeds, 
are recognised only as they harmonize with the word of God. 
The oracles of heaven, and not the fallability of human reason, 
are the test by which error is to be detected, the fan to sepa- 
rate the elements of orthodoxy from heresy, the crucible to the 
powerful agency of which every speculation is to be subject- 
ed, and truth to be disengaged, undiminished, and unalloyed. 
What delightful results on the peace and prosperity of the Christ- 
ian church, may we not speedily anticipate from this new order 
of things. MM of these is already visible in the improved 
method of intierpreting scripture. Expositors, who formerly re- 
paired to the inspired volume to fmd out arguments for defending 
their particular system were not likely to arrive at " the mind of 
the spirit of God." Their minds were biased, and under this in- 
fluence they controlled the testimony of scripture like the heathens, 
who often compelled their oracles to speak in their favor. Under 
the impulse of a heated fancy, they opened the Bible much like 
the individual in a reverie, w^ho gazing on the glowing embers of 
the fire, or the undulations of the fleecy cloud, imagines that he 
sees embattled armies and turretted cities. Allegories were strain- 
ed and twisted till som^ novel truth w^as elicited which had es- 
caped all previous criticism; a parable was grossly perverted to 
establish the dograjd' of some particular sect; the w^atchwords of 
party strife, or the i^6ttoe§,. that were engraven on their banners, 
were the language of^scripture, distorted and employed as the 
badges of faction. Thus like the Jew^ish rabbies, who often dis- 
covered the most profound mysteries of religion in the arrange- 
ment of single letters or syllables, how often have the scriptures 
been made to teach the fancies and opinions of men. But these 
" idola specus" as Lord Bacon would designate them, are disap- 
pearing before the march of divine truth, like the floating masses 
of clouds before the influence of the sun. Scripture is now inter- 

4 



V 



26 

preted by the laws of a sound and enlightened criticism. Parties, 
instead of fencing round their opinions with the authority of 
eminent names, are testing them upon their coincidence with the 
word of God. The simple and satisfactory compass w ithin which 
all theological controversies are settled is this: are these points 
contained in the w^ord of God, then they must be true; are they 
at variance with it, then they must be false ; or are there no refer- 
ences to them in the scriptures, then they may be either true or 
false, but the subject at issue is no matter of faith, and no part of 
religion. In the increasing prevalence of this sentiment over the 
Christian, do we see what will for ever terminate those struggles 
which religion has been doomed to encounter, and which we il- 
lustrated under a previous division of our subject. For if civil 
establishments of religion be the mere institutions of human poli- 
cy, and none save their most bigotted advocates claim for them 
any other authority, they will speedily be removed as a piece of 
useless and cumbrous machinery in the framework of the Christ- 
ian church; the pride of human intellect will be checked in 
proportion as the supremacy of revelation is acknowledged, 
the love of merit will give place to luminous statements of 
evangelical truth, and the perversions of the morality of scripture 
will find an appropriate antidote in the increasing reverence 
for the Bible, which, wherever it is diffused, elevates the stand- 
ard of public sentiment and the tone of public feeling, and 
exercises an indirect influence over every department of duty, and 
every class of society. 

It is an age distinguished by increasing liberality of senti- 
ment among the various sections of the Christian church. 
This is a necessary consequence of the principle which we have 
already illustrated; for in proportion as the scriptures are vene- 
rated, as the only standard for determining truth, will the im- 
portance of sectional differences disappear, and the acrimony 
of controversy be diminished. In what a distracted condition 
the church of Christ has long existed. As we peruse its past 
history we seem to be reading the transactions of various in- 
dependent communities, whose interests were opposite^ and 



27 

Avhose existence incompatible with the peace and prosperity 
of each other; and in the bitter jealousies awakened by the ri- 
valry of faction, and in the unscruplous means employed to attain 
to aggrandizement and triumph, giving but slender evidence that 
their master and interests and duties were one. From the begin- 
ning it was not so. In the days of the apostles, when differences 
of sentiment appeared in the church, they inculcated the duty of 
mutual tolerance on subjects not involving the fundamental doc- 
trines of religion. The same pleasing proofs of Christian libe- 
rality existed after the reformation ; Protestants felt themselves to 
be bound together by a community of interest and affection. The 
churches of Holland, Germany, Switzerland, France, England 
and vScotland, maintained unbroken harmony of intercourse, and 
delighted to hail each other as belonging to the fellowship of 
the saints. The refugee from the continent found shelter in the 
bosom of the British churches, was welcomed to the table of the 
Lord, and if a minister in his native land, was admitted into the 
pulpits, even of York and Canterbury. An adequate certificate 
bore its possessor in the full enjoyment of communion, over the 
wide extent of reformed Christendom. But as unfettered discus- 
sion gradually gave rise to a wide variety of sects, jealousies were 
enkindled, the subjects of controversy swelled into indefinite im- 
portance, and their adherents not only shunned all intercourse 
with each other, but indulged in uncharitable motives and grossly 
contemptuous language. Each party intrenched itself behind its 
own ramparts and refused to cooperate w^ith others in efforts of 
piety and Christian benevolence, unless they could subscribe the 
articles of a creed and hosannah the shibboleth of a party. This 
was arrogant as well as uncharitable. For the Bible is a book of 
general principles, confining our attention chiefly to the leading 
facts and doctrines of religion. Had it gratified our curiosity upon 
every subject connected with that boundless field into which it 
introduces us, and of w^hich natural religion furnishes us no inti- 
mation, such as the modes of subsistence in the divine essence, 
the introduction of moral evil, the ranks and offices of angels, the 
mysteries in the book of providence, the influence of the scheme 



28 

of redemption on other orders of beings in the universe, and 
the minute details connected with the legislation of the Christ- 
ian church, " the world itself would not have contained the vol- 
umes which might have been written." A uniformity of senti- 
ment therefore becomes necessary as a bond of union among the 
disciples of the Saviour, only respecting those doctrines that are 
clearly revealed; but where there are others, that must be deduced 
by inference, or not revealed with so much precision, but that 
conflicting sentiments can be conscientiously entertained re- 
specting them, they should call forth the candor and forbearance 
of the different branches of the church of Christ. To this delight- 
ful consummation the church is rapidly approaching. What an 
advance has been made within the last half century. The asperi- 
ties of party have been smoothed down, the members of different 
churches are cidtivating feelings of affection and forbearance to 
each other, and rallying as a common bond of union, around those 
subjects in which they agree; instead of wasting their efforts in sec- 
tional and desultory movements of benevolence, they are concen- 
trating their energies against the empire of Satan. We contem- 
plate ministers of different denominations, members of the same 
committee, advocating the diffusion of the gospel, on the same 
platform, and the Christian world in all its movements receding 
farther and farther from the narrow prejudices of sectarian intol- 
erance. What a rich and refreshing illustration of this was re- 
cently exhibited in the metropolis of the British empire, at the 
convocation termed " the Evangelical Alliance." There we be- 
hold assembled, the representatives of the orthodox churches in 
both hemispheres of our globe, some of them encountering the perils 
of the ocean during a long voyage, and others travelling hun- 
dreds of miles by land, speaking different languages, belonging to 
churches widely differing in doctrinal statement, worship and 
legislation, and yet these men of eminent talents and piety, and 
sagacity, do not regard the attempt, in the present age, visionary 
or impracticable to fuse into one concentrated mass the separate 
portions of the church, and speedily realize the prayer of our Sa- 
viour, " That they may be one even as we are one. I in them 



29 

and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." May 
the celestial dove speedily descend with the olive branch as an 
indication that the waters of strife have subsided, and the golden 
bow of the covenant, as it encircles within its embrace all the 
sections of the Christian church, become the blessed pledge of the 
reign of truth and love to her remotest borders. 

The last feature of the present age, which we shall adduce, 
is the efforts that are making for the extension of Christian- 
ity. This is a prominent and delightful characteristic of the 
times in which we live. Little more than fifty years have elapsed 
since the church awoke to her duty in reference to the heathen 
world, and when the scheme was first announced, it was con- 
templated as one of the most Quixotic expeditions that had 
ever busied the heated imagination of a speculative philanthro- 
pist. It was branded with the stigma of fanaticism, and at- 
tempted to be demonstrated as impracticable on the principles 
of sound deduction, for it was alledged that the countries were 
so unhealthy that none but a native could subsist there, that the 
inhabitants were ignorant as the beasts and fiercer than the 
lions that prowled in their forests, that they were so volatile that 
no courtesy could gain their attention, or so devoted to their 
superstitions that they would never renounce them, that their lan- 
guag^es were so rude in their orthography that they could never 
be susceptible of arrangement, and so difficiilt to pronounce, that 
none but a native could speak them. With these and similar ob- 
jections was the benevolent enterprise of evangelizing the world 
assailed in its infancy. And now look at the results. How sig- 
nal its success, how almost miraculous its triuniphs. " Its line is 
gone through all the earth, and its words to the ends of the 
world." It has penetrated into regions which the Roman eagle, 
at the head of victorious armies never approached, reclaimed wan- 
dering savages, whom philosophy in her tender mercies left hope- 
lessly to perish on the banks of the Ganges and on the shores of 
the Caspian, dispelling the shades of superstition, and abolishing 
the reign of legalised and degrading vices, converting the beauti- 
ful isles of the Pacific, where man existed, brutified by ignorance, 



30 

and steeped in pollution, into the lovely abodes of civilization and 
piety, and even in frozen Greenland, and in hearts colder than their 
clime, is its benign influence triumphing, and the sun of righteous- 
ness arising with healing under his wings. These zealous move- 
ments have been accompanied by equally energetic and enlight- 
ened measures for the promotion of true piety at home. The re- 
ligious education of the young, the diffusion of spiritual instruction 
through the publication of elementary treatises on the doctrines 
of the gospe], or through the medium of instructive and attractive 
narratives, the numerous subdivisions of the schemes of Christian 
benevolence in adaptation to the circumstances of our species, 
and the facility with which knowledge finds a path to the most 
inaccessible districts by the system of colportage, all stamp the 
present age as second in importance only to the apostolic, and 
lead us to regard it as the speedy harbinger of a brighter day, 
when all shall know the Lord, and his name shall be glorified. 

Such are some of the distinctive features of Christianity in her 
present position. May we not exclaim, " Blessed are our eyes 
for they see, and our ears for they hear." It was the complaint 
of Milton that " his lot had been cast in evil days." With no 
conceivable propriety can any such complaint be advanced, by 
any individual now, who desires to consecrate his talents and 
energies to the truth as " it is in Jesus." The wide field of 
Christian labor is open, society is stirred up from its inmost depths, 
the great drama, composed of such interesting events, and for 
which so many persons in diflferent ages of the world have been 
summoned on the stage, is nearly drawing to a close, and happy 
is he, who in these favorable circumstances, embarks his energies 
in the blessed cause of diflfusing the knowledge of divine truth. 
But this leads me to contemplate, 

III. Its Future Prospects. 

Uncertainty may be safely predicated of every sublunary object. 

How unstable are human systems and governments ; theories at one 

time extravagantly extolled, have been discarded at another. 

Schemes of philanthropy, from which incalculable benefits were 



31 

anticipated, have been found impracticable. The s)bil that pre- 
dicted the perpetuity of the Roman empire at the time when a 
few hovels only occupied its territory, and a few straggling robbers 
were all its population, seemed to be a genuine prophet, as in 
the days of Augustus and Antoninus, we see the traces of its do- 
minion in every nation, and the shadow of its power encircling 
the whole circumference of the w^orld; but in the progress of cen- 
turies, the Goth and the Vandal overturned its power, and laid 
all its boasted magnificence in the dust. It is pleasing to know 
that the religion of Jesus is not destined to share the fate which 
so many systems have undergone. On the contrary, bright as her 
triumphs have hitherto been, these are to be entirely eclipsed in 
the glory of those that yet await her. Beneficial as has been 
her agency hitherto, it is on a limited scale compared with that on 
which it is yet to be exerted, when all that enters into our most ex- 
alted ideas of philanthropy, knowledge, peace, equity, social hap- 
piness and political tranquility shall be universally diffused over our 
earth, and reaching far as the curse has penetrated and extending 
its influences wide as the empire of Jehovah, shall introduce into 
our world a brightness that no cloud shall obscure, and a serenity 
that no storm shall disturb, and finally transfer its reign to heaven, 
where holiness and love shall triumph for ever and ever. 

Almost every step of the ground over which I am now very 
briefly to conduct you, has furnished subjects of ardent contro- 
versy. I have neither the leisure nor the inclination to enter upon 
these at present. Permit me then, to furnish you with a rapid 
sketch of some of the most interesting phases in the history of the 
church, from the present period to the time of its consummation, 
and to state them in the order in which they shall take place. 

The first important event will be the annihilation of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church. This is distinctly revealed in the prophe- 
cies of Daniel and the apocalypse of St. John. The manner in 
W'hich this anti-Christian system shall expire, differs from every 
other. Idolatry is to be supplanted by the light of the gospel, 
the prejudices of the Jew and the Mohammedan are to be subdued 
by a perception of the claims of the scriptures to be a revelation 



32 

from God; but Roman Catholicism is destined to expire in blood, 
by a combination of the enlightened nations of the earth, who 
shall regard her existence as no longer compatible with the liber- 
ties and social improvement of the human race. Her requiem 
shall be sounded, not in the accents of lamentation, but with the 
voice of joy and gratitude, " Babylon the great, the mighty is 
fallen." This bloody tragedy is a natural consummation to a 
church, of which ignorance, depravity and tyranny have been the 
invariable characteristics, that has so long held in thrall the na- 
tions of the earth, retarded the progress of knowledge, destroyed 
the saints of the most high, and impiously usurped the preroga- 
tives of Jehovah. When this collision shall take place, which 
shall lead to the final overthrow, we cannot tell; it is impossible, 
however, to contemplate, unless with the liveliest apprehension, 
the prodigious efforts she is now making to appropriate this goodly 
heritage of ours, and convert the birth place of liberty, and the 
region of happiness into a gloomy receptacle of ignorance and 
intolerance. Let us not be deceived by her pretensions to libe- 
rality, nor dream that her spirit of malignity can ever depart from 
her; the rod of her persecution is now bruised — it is not broken; 
the flax of her intolerance is smoking, and not extinguished; the 
lion crouches, instead of tearing us to pieces, because his mouth is 
muzzled, and the spring of the bear is at present harmless, because 
his claws have been pared. But though it becomes us to be vigi- 
lant in guarding our liberties, and our religious privileges, we 
entertain no fears as to the i-esult. Those who talk of Popery 
ever becoming the religion of the United States of America, not- 
withstanding the exertions of Jesuits, and the vast immigration of 
foreign Catholics, must be looking for such a convulsion as shall 
obliterate the present face of our country, and consign to oblivion 
all the heart-stirring recollections of its past history; for so long as 
our mountains, valleys and lakes are associated with the generous 
patriotism and valiant struggles of the fathers of our country to 
transmit the blood purchased inheritance of civil and religious 
liberty to their children's children, so long will Popery ever be 
regarded with emotions of inextinguishable reprobation, as alike 



33 

inimical to the well being of our species, and contrary to the mild 
and benevolent spirit of Christianity. 

This will be tbllowed by tlie diffusion of the gospel among all the 
nations of the earth. This work, vast as it may appear, and almost 
insuperable as are the obstacles to its accomplishment, w^ill be effect- 
ed by the instrumentality of the preached word and the blessed effu- 
sions of divine influence. Unlike Judaism, or other religions, 
whose peculiar institutions disqualify them for ever spreading far 
beyond the seat of their publication, Christianity, by the simplicity 
of her ceremonial and the spirituality of her moral code, is adapted 
to every clime and condition of society. " The knowledge of the 
Lord shall cover the earth as the w^aters cover the mighty deep." 
Thoucjh Mohammed have now more followers than theNazarene, 
and the adherents of false gods be double the number of both, yet 
the gospel shall be diffused wherever there is an ear to hear or a 
heart to feel its influence; and renouncing their idols, and debas- 
ing superstitions, and believing in Christ as the only Saviour of 
sinners, " men shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call 
him blessed." 

Intimately connected with, and indeed preparatory to this, 
shall he the conversion of the Jews. This singular people, de- 
spised among the nations of the earth, who have inflicted upon 
them the most cruel persecutions, aliens under every government, 
isolated in their customs and interests, wherever they are found, 
and without the ephod, and oracle, and other distinctive badges 
of their national faith, yet multiplying amid all their miseries, 
surviving their enemies, and cherishing amid all their misfortunes a 
settled conviction that the star of their national prosperity, though 
often clouded is yet to appear, w^ith a lustre and glory unsurpassed 
in any former period of their annals, — this singular people are 
destined to play a conspicuous part in the future history of the 
world. Of their restoration to the land of their fathers, we think 
that many passages of scripture w^hich might be quoted, abund- 
antly assure us. If any thing additional were necessary to cor- 
roborate it, it w^ould be the present depopulated condition of Pa- 
lestine. This country, w^hich in the days of David and Solomon, 

5 



34 

sustained some millions of inhabitants, is now almost a desert; 
only a few straggling Arabs, roaming in quest of plunder, seen 
hovering along its frontiers, and its villages, with but few ex- 
ceptions, composed of miserable hamlets, where the inhabitants 
live in a state of the most lamentable destitution and ignorance. 
When the scattered remnant of Abraham, therefore, return to the 
land of their fathers, there are no territorial rights to disturb, no 
agrarian laws to invade, no injustice done to an organized com- 
munity in forcibly ejecting them from their possessions, or van- 
quishing them by the terrors of the sword. " The Jebusite, the 
Amorite, and the Perizzite are not in the land " And what an 
impulse will be given to the energies of the Christian world, and 
how will infidelity, panic-struck, eye the total discomfiture of its 
system, when one of the most splendid, yet most unlikely of scrip- 
ture prophecies has been fulfilled, in the long insulted and desolate 
standard of Judah, being again planted on the turrets and battle- 
ments of Zion. The Jews thus converted, will become the most 
efficient coadjutors in the blessed enterprise of evangelizing the 
world. In resigning to the Jew this position, we must forget the 
present obnoxious features of his character, or at least remember 
them only as the natural offspring of his peculiarly degraded con- 
dition. The homage universally paid to wealth has rendered 
him rapacious, his unjust treatment made him unsocial, and the 
disposition every where to over-reach, induced him in self defence 
to become practised in intrigue and duplicity. But when the 
curse of heaven is withdrawn, and the gospel sheds its mellowing 
influence over the Hebrew character, the Jews will become the most 
devoted, eloquent, and successful missionaries of the cross; their 
zeal for the law of Moses, diverted to a new object, will burn 
wdth a brighter flame, and over a wider territory, and their conver- 
sion striking the nations of the earth with astonishment, will secure 
to them a powerful influence wherever they are seen. Let us not 
therefore despond as if the conversion of the heathen world were 
an extremely remote event, w^hen we look at the complicated in- 
strumentality by w^hich it must be eflfected. In the conversion of 
the Jewish nation, we shall have a host of fully disciplined mis- 



35 

sionarios conversant with tlic habits and languages of almost every 
nation of the earth; for wherever wealth is to be acquired, and 
commerce in its rudest state exists, there the Israelite is to be 
found, the man of ducats and shekels, of exchange and merchan- 
dize; in the island of Madagascar, at the base of the Himalayan 
mountains, in the mines of Mexico, or at the slave markets of 
Louisiana; amid the sands of Egypt, and the snows of Green- 
land. Thus shall they be admirably fitted for realising the glo- 
ries of the latter day, " when many shall run to and fro, and 
knowledge shall be increased, and all nations be turned to the 
Lord." This interesting state of society shall be succeeded by 
the milleniumy a period of a thousand years, when holiness, 
righteousness and peace shall signally prevail in our world. 
Whether Christ during this period is to reign personally upon the 
earth, or those passages which appear to sanction this opinion 
are to be understood in a spiritual sense, as descriptive of the in- 
fluence of his gospel upon the hearts and consciences of men, is a 
subject of controversy on which we shall not here enter. During 
this auspicious period, the light of the gospel, like that of the sun 
in the heavens, shall encircle the nations of the earth; the Messiah 
shall be universally honored, and the blessed fruits of his gospel be 
every where visible; dissentions, anarchies and w^ars shall be suc- 
ceeded by the reign of peace and love, treaties shall be sacredly 
observed, justice scrupulously maintained between man and man, 
in all the transactions of life, and the primeval happiness and 
bliss of our globe, almost revived, when Jehovah looked dow^n 
upon it, and pronounced it very good. Hear the interesting reve- 
lations of scripture, Micah iv, 1-4. 

At the expiration of this period, impiety and vice are again to 
obtain the ascendancy. During the period of the millenium, these 
were not exterminated, but only suppressed; though controlled by 
the influence of the gospel, they still lurked in our world, and 
had their abettors. At this time they shall again unhappily pre- 
vail; " Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and go forth to de- 
ceive the nations;" infidelity and vice shall anew desolate the face 



36 

of our earth, and men shall exclaim in contempt of the doctrines 
of scripture "where is the promise of his coming." 

But while a sceptical generation shall deride as visionary the 
second advent of the Messiah, it shall burst upon them unexpect- 
edly, like the deluge w^hich destroyed the antediluvians, who de- 
spised the warnings of Noah. The great drama of the world is 
now to be wound up, the history of its many agitations and tran- 
sactions shall now come to a close. The heavens are to be dis- 
solved, the elements to melt with fervent heat, and a scene of re- 
tribution to commence, which is to fill eternity either with joys or 
sorrows. Hark! the trumpet sounds I the archangel proclaims 
that time shall be no more! arise ye dead and come to judgment. 
They rise, they all rise from the Egyptian pyramids, from the 
carnage of the battle field, the caverns of the ocean, the peak of 
the most elevated mountain, or the recesses of the darkest valley. 
Death is vanquished, the grave has not a solitary victim in its 
dominions. What an immense multitude! They fill the air, they 
crowd to the scene of judgment, they take their respective sta- 
tions around it, for now a final and everlasting destruction shall 
be made between the two great classes of mankind. The blessed 
Jesus with the marks of the wounds which he received on Calvary, 
when he purchased the redemption of his saints, shall occupy the 
throne of judgment, and shall see of the travail of his soul, in the 
countless hosts who shall swell the triumphs of his train, and cele- 
brate in anthems of ceaseless joy, the blessings of his matchless 
love. He pronounces the doom of interminable misery on his 
enemies, " Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels," w^hile his beloved people, 
whom he purchased on earth, he takes with him to inherit those 
mansions which he has prepared, where they shall be raised to a 
felicity and glory, wide as the capacities of their nature and infi- 
nite as the duration of their being. " Come ye blessed of my 
father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation 
of the world." 

What a glorious consummation to the scheme of redemption! 



37 

Jehovah glorified in the highest; man redeemed; the theatre 
of rebellion honored by the residence of Immanuel and the scene 
of his blessed enterprise and triumphs; Satan baffled in all his 
schemes, and imprisoned with his confederate hosts in everlasting 
darkness; redemption in its unparalleled blessings, stretching 
wide as the curse has extended; distant worlds rolling in the 
immensity of space, learning the character of the Godhead, with 
blended emotions of reverence and love the blessed company 
of the redeemed, which no man can number, striking their golden 
harps, and in the sweetest notes of melodious song, celebrating 
with entranced and ever increasing emotions, the love of an in- 
carnate God, while cherubim and seraphim shall mingle in the 
song, and ascribe unfeigned homage and praise to the Trisagion, 
the thrice holy incomprehensible essence. 

I have thus endeavored to illustrate the theme which we an- 
nounced at the outset, viz: Christianity in her past struggles, her 
present condition, her future prospects. The extensive nature of 
the subject has necessarily shut me up to a mere outline of these, 
and I have gained my object, if I have stimulated your curiosity, 
to expand it in the future researches of your private studies. 

How interesting my friends, to trace the history of Christianity 
in our world! Her limited influence you will perceive, has been 
owing, not to any inherent w^ant of energy, or principle of exten- 
sion, of w^hich she may be destitute, but to the passions and pre- 
judices of the world. Some of these are rapidly disappearing. 
Legislators and philosophers now concede the inefficacy of every 
expedient save the Bible for the regeneration of society. Let us 
therefore, under a deep sense of our obligation to God for the 
blessings wdth which he has distinguished us, study to counte- 
nance every Christian effort, to diffuse the knowledge of divine 
truth at home and abroad. We embark in no Utopian enterprise. 
Our labors if w^e persevere shall be crowned with success. Let us 
in our several spheres consecrate ourselves to the service of God, 
and be fellow workers together with him in hastening forward 
those auspicious times, when Jewish incredulity, heathen super- 
stition, and every form of error, both at home and abroad, 



38 

shall disappear under the benign influence of the gospel, and all 
nations shall be baptised into the service of the Messiah. 

And you, my young friends, the hope of the church, and we 
believe destined to be her gifted and devoted servants, allow me 
again to congratulate you as aspirants to the pastoral office. " If 
a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work." 
The baubles of ambition, the pageantry of rank, the feverish ex- 
citement of political strife, or even the tranquil pursuits of science, 
are bounded by the narrow circle of time, and respect man in the 
humblest and least important of his destinies; the labors of a min- 
ister of religion, on the contrary, embrace the essential elements 
of his being, and prepare him, under the blessed and purifying 
reign of the gospel on earth, for the presence of God, and the 
enjoyments of the heavenly world for ever. Cultivate by 
every possible means personal piety. Be not satisfied, unless with 
the most elevated standard of Christian character. Let the scrip- 
tures be the great text book to which your studies have now more 
than ever a special reference, and when you feel, as you often will, 
that you 'Mack wisdom, ask it of God who giveth to all men libe- 
rally, and upbraideth not.'' Some of you may be called to occupy 
arduous stations in the church, and your lives may be consumed 
in the incessant and often discouraging labors of your profession; 
but remember this world is not the scene of your reward, and if 
'' ye be faithful unto the death, ye shall receive the crown of glory 
that fadeth not away." Let the honors which Christ shall pub- 
licly confer on you at his appearing, reconcile you to all the hard- 
ships and privations of his service while here. " Then," to con- 
clude in the words of an eloquent divine,* " then what a scene 
awaits you! In that illustrious day, when even the mighty 
achievements of Bacon, of Newton, of Milton, shall be consumed 
by the general conflagration, and scattered with the ashes of the 
globe; when the most splendid productions of human genius with 
all the choicest flowers of art, of literature and of science, shall 
serve but as a garland to deck the funeral pile of expiring nature, 
and leave the scholar and the artist without a ray of glory to dis- 

*James. 



39 

tinguish them from the crowds whicli throng the bar of judgment; 
when the names of the legishitors, warriors and philosophers that 
for thousands of years have emblazoned the annals of mankind, 
shall all be passed over in silence, then shall your names be an- 
nounced to assembled worlds as having accomplished an immortal 
work; and when observing millions shall be waiting for the deed 
of renown, a glorified spirit dressed in the robes of righteousness, 
and arrayed in the garments of salvation, shall advance from the 
right hand of the Judge, followed by another, and another, and 
another, who, pointing to you with transports of delight shall ex- 
claim, " Behold the ministers, to whose faithful labors under God 
we owe the salvation of our immortal souls." Then when the 
eye of the universe shall be fixed upon you, and the voice of a 
great multitude, as the voice of many waters shall exclaim, re- 
joice over them ye heavens, the great master whom you serve will 
acknowledge all your labors with smiles of ineffable complacency, 
and words of mysterious condescension. " Well done, good and 
faithful servants, having approved yourselves in all things, minis- 
ters of God, enter ye into the joy of your Lord." 




* 



(!II)nstiamtn ; 
Jts past sirngglcc— its present position— its fntnrc prospects: 



AN 



ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, UNION COLLEGE, 



SABBATH EVENING, JULY 25, 1847. 



BY REV. EBENEZER HALLEY, 

SALEM, N. Y. 



PUBLISHED BY THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY, 



JUf^ 



^ ALBANY: 
PRINTED BY JOEL MUNSELL. 

■ 1847. 












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